Doug Ford gifts injured workers’ money to corporations

Ontario Tory Premier Doug Ford has gifted $2 billion in Ontario’s Workers Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) surplus premiums back to employers, as part of an $11 billion ‘bailout’, in anticipation of the effect of Donald Trump’s tariffs. Not new for this government: Ford gifted $1.5 billion in WSIB surplus premiums to employers in 2022, at the height of the pandemic, to cover their ‘costs’.

Since 2017, employers have seen their WSIB premiums reduced by $18.6 billion – while workers got nothing. Now the corporations are at the trough again.

The original announcement to give $2.5 billion in insurance payments back to employers was made in November 2024. It has now become part of a rescue plan for Ontario businesses, despite no disaster that would merit a ‘rescue’ having yet occurred.

This surplus of the WSIB has accumulated while 1 in 5 injured workers are living in extreme poverty (earning less than $10,000 per year). Just over 40% reported an income of less than $15,000/year. One in 5 injured workers lose their homes, and 50% cannot afford the prescriptions they need. Twenty two percent of WSIB claims are refused overall – that is, reported claims (that must by law be recorded by the employer). This while employers have seen their insurance rates drop significantly in recent years.

Successive governments have encouraged WSIB to reduce, or deny claims (currently chronic stress complaints, supported by medical documentation, are denied at a rate of 90%). In particular, the WSIB practice of ‘deeming’ has saved the WSIB, and employers, billions of dollars. With this practice, injured workers are ‘deemed’ by the WSIB to be able to work - at another job, most often at a lower rate of pay. The injured worker is expected to work at that job, even if it does not exist – but their existing compensation will be reduced or eliminated accordingly.

Increasing denials, lower compensation rates and anti-worker practices have thus ended up in massive surpluses for the WSIB – returned to employers, whose neglect of worker safety, through unsafe working conditions, or speed-ups, has often led to the injuries themselves. Even when a worker, disabled by a workplace injury, is able to find work, it is almost certainly at a significantly lower rate. Given the ongoing employment discrimination that exists against disabled workers, many are forced onto social assistance.

Here’s how well it works for corporations: they pay ever decreasing premiums to the WSIB. In turn, the WSIB, reduces successful claims, or through ‘deeming’, pays out as little as possible. One hand washes the other, and presto – money that is rightfully ours, the surplus, is returned to corporate coffers, by the likes of Doug Ford, and the cycle to starts again. They profit on our labour, then on our injury.

Injured and disabled workers, retired workers, people on social assistance – we make easy targets for right-wing governments and their ‘think-tank’ partners. When we are no longer productive, we are called ‘cheats’, or ‘lazy’ – so they can take our money. As we age, we are packed like sardines into long-term care facilities – where during a pandemic, we meet an untimely death. But we were once skilled, productive workers - they didn’t mind us then.

On April 28^th, the annual Day of Mourning for workers injured or killed on the job approaches, we in the labour movement gather to mourn them. One of our slogans is “Mourn the Dead, fight like hell for the Living”. Those of us no longer working do not have the power at the point of production to confront the employing class – but our unions do. We best make plans to use that power, as the attacks on our wages and benefits are bound to continue. They can solve their problems on our backs and push us into poverty – but only if we let them.